How CodeRush pissed me off

CodeRush. What can I say?
I may be a little less on the objective side, having used CodeSmart for the past several years, but any tool that claims they are the only tool to have a “code templates“ feature, either is lying or have no idea what is in the market.
Hell, CodeSmart have had this functionality for at least 3 years that I know of, even back in the VB6 days.
It actually offends me as a developer that CodeSmart isn't even on their list of competitive features table. Heck, you have Resharper there, but that's not even out of Alpha version, and you have Visual Assist, which , to my mind, has been (for other than C++ dev) almost non existent in features, but where the heck is CodeSmart? It's almost as if they are avoiding it on purpose. are you?
 
Disclaimer: I do not work for AXTools, maker of CodeSmart, I'm just a huge fan of their software and have been using it for a long time. As a happy customer, I always show it to people and they love it. Remarkably, its still not very well known.
 
Anyway, here's my list of “real world” comparison features with CodeRush and CodeSmart.
The 4 most important things I use with CodeSmart are:
  1. AutoText - CodeRush has this and it's called “Templates“
CodeRush does a slightly better job of templates, because you have active field markers in the expanded text that you can change easily after the expansion actually occurs. I'd love to see this in CodeSmart, but it's not heartbreaking.
 
2. Consolidated project view + Class view - CodeRush has nothing like this
3. Extended find & replace - CodeRush aint even close.
4. Code builders - Same as above
 
As for CodeRushe's features: Most of them are eye-candy, and are just as useful as they sound. Nice to have, nothing more.
 - Markers,i.e. “better bookmarks”. OK. what else?
- selection expansion - I like it. would like to see it in CodeSmart. saves time.
- Quick - nav: already have a quick solution for this, and it's free: QuickJump
- Spell checking: got it in CS
- Flow evaluation: don't have it, nice to have but not earth shattering
- live error highlighting: I'd like this a lot!
- Smart cut/copy: sorta have it already. I wonder just how many people use this.
- Duplicate line: erm.. macros? hear of those?
-Add-in extensibility: coolness. I wants it.
 
Now, take a frigging look at CodeSmart's features and tell me it does not have better features. Really. I can see why there was no comparison to CS in the chart. I can live with “We provide other features, but not these right now” but ignoring the competition as if they don't exist is an insult to my intelligence.
Published Thursday, March 25, 2004 2:11 AM by RoyOsherove
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Comments

Wednesday, March 24, 2004 12:19 PM by TrackBack

# The Regulator moves to SourceForge, slowly but surely

Thursday, March 25, 2004 6:53 PM by .

# re: How CodeRush pissed me off

this isn't a comparison. this is a msg posted after a bad day
Friday, March 26, 2004 3:22 AM by Who cares?

# re: How CodeRush pissed me off

Oh boy, another Very Basic-y not getting the power and features of CodeRush - well, be happy with CodeSmart and just leave us alone, will ya?
Saturday, March 27, 2004 12:33 PM by David Scott

# re: How CodeRush pissed me off

I wrote a VS.NET macro that will provide the functionality of the Selection Expansion feature. If you are interested you can find it at http://www.idiotproof.org/DasBlog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=84a07b84-6023-4b36-a9a6-641845d84459
Monday, March 29, 2004 8:46 AM by Mark Miller

# re: How CodeRush pissed me off

Hi Roy,

First of all, I want to say how impressed I am with your passion for CodeSmart. It's a great thing to be excited about a tool that improves your life.

I would like to respond to two issues raised in your message.

First, you expressed concern about CodeSmart not appearing in our feature comparison. We omitted CodeSmart because it did not have the buzz that Visual Assist X and Resharper did. CodeSmart was a candidate for inclusion, but so were others, including Visual SlickEdit, CodeObject Premium, CodeWright, CodePatterns.NET, CodeObject, CodeBox, Studio Complete, CodeReview, CodeSwap, etc. In the near future when we dedicate resources to updating the feature comparison matrix, it is likely that CodeSmart will appear in that list.

Second, I wanted to clear up some potential confusion. No where on our site do we claim that CodeRush is the only tool to include code templates. We do say that "CodeRush is the only programmer's tool to ship with an extensive code template library." This statement is true. The CodeRush template library is *extensive* (huge in breadth and depth). Most tools offering code templates include a small handful of simple templates. The burden then falls on the customer to determine and fill-in the missing pieces. Most developers don't spend every waking moment thinking about ways to improve their productivity, but we do. The CodeRush templates provide a strong foundation upon which teams and individuals can build and extend to fulfill changing needs. The content is accessible, consistent, sophisticated, and quite efficient.

I offer the following section of the CodeRush User Guide as proof:

Create\Code Templates\Member Declarations

This will provide a peek at a small but important cross-section of the entire template library.

Finally, I wanted to add that I think being a fan of a developer tool is a great thing, and we fully support our customers who use other third-party tools with CodeRush. The very nature of CodeRush's visual extensibility architecture is a testament to that philosophy. We think there is nothing cooler than a new dev tool idea with a great implementation, and that's why we made it so easy to extend Visual Studio with CodeRush. This is also why we have made the core CodeRush engine and the plug-in wizards free to all developers. Of course, we feel this way not only for plug-ins that work with CodeRush, but also for products made by our competitors.

Ultimately, it's about increasing productivity, and we have great respect for anyone who is working hard to do that.

Best regards,

Mark Miller - Developer Express
Monday, March 29, 2004 11:42 AM by TrackBack

# Very good contest news, and an apology to Mark Miller

Friday, April 02, 2004 10:25 PM by KraGiE

# re: How CodeRush pissed me off

Woah. Mark Miller did an OWNED on you! yeah, I got coderush, and I'm lovin' it. CodeSmart could be better, but as for now, CodeRush is my dev add on of choice.

I haven't had it long either. Just a week, and now I can't live w/o it. I saw it at VSLive on Mark Miller's box when he went over Operator Overloads.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006 10:48 AM by Calisto

# re: How CodeRush pissed me off

Some "templates" of CodeRush is, some isn't useful
Wednesday, February 14, 2007 8:22 AM by Chris

# re: How CodeRush pissed me off

Just used CodeRush for the first time and I have to say I hate it.  It's slow and locks the IDE for  blocks of upto five to ten seconds each time it has to 'think'.  It's inline 'intelligent' guessing is often wrong and only guesses at function names and not variables.

I may have not configured it right or used it properly, but I didn't like it. It got in my way.  Uninstall > Coderush. My money you won't be getting.

Friday, March 02, 2007 12:35 AM by parvel

# re: How CodeRush pissed me off

Hi Chris,

May be its high time you throw away your old PC which stucks for 5 seconds. I have been using CodeRush on a rusty office PC and its working fine.

Parvel